16 



very essential aid. If Hess' opinion is correct, it is to be assumed 

 that tuberculosis must take an unusually vicious course in sucli herds, 

 but this I have been unable to prove. At Thurebylille there lias ex- 

 isted for three years a reacting division, consisting originally of 131 

 head and now of G'J. Although these animals are yearly tested, and 

 although most of them react every year, the division certainly appears 

 to be made upof healthy animals and the farm inspector has expressed 

 the decided opiuion that the tuberculosis in this division is no more 

 developed than at the beginning of the experiment. The testimony 

 of many owners of large herds of cattle which have long ago bt-en 

 injected is to the same effect. I will adduce statements from several. 

 A farm tenant whose cattle were injected 20 months previously, when 

 82 per cent of tlie grown animals reacted, wrote me recently as fol- 

 lows : Only two cows from the division of 100 head had been sold as 

 decidedly tuberculous. The majority appeared afterwards, just as 

 before, entirely healthy. The fat animals which had been slaugh- 

 tered had been pronounced healthy by the butchers. Another farm 

 tenant with a herd injected in 1894 had not been obliged to remove a 

 single animal from the tuberculous division numbering 70 head. A 

 large farm owner in Jutland stated in September that he had traced 

 no undesirable result from the injection. His herd of 350 had been 

 injected in February and about 75 percent reacted. Similar answers 

 have been given by other owners and veterinarians.'*'^ 



On a large farm, on which before the injection, tuberculosis had 

 appeared in a vicious form, the owner had the impression thai the 

 severe cases had afterwards become more numerous. He had, how- 

 ever, not suffered severe losses, and eight months later the large react- 

 ing division by no means made a bad impression. Finally, it is to be 

 noticed, that tuberculin has been employed on a large scale in 13en- 

 mark for years, and still the demand from farmers constantly in- 

 creases. This could certainly not be the case if the injections were 



generally followed by bad results. 



* * * * ******* 



We have now found that in tuberculin we possess, if not an abso- 

 lutely infallible, still an excellent means for recognizing tuberculosis ; 

 and that its application is not connected with any particular danger. 

 There still remains the question : How may this material best be 



4U. A veterinarian who liad injected (iOO animals, anidnfi; them a herd of a lar^e 

 farm 18 inontlis previously, expresses the lielief that the injection has prodnced in 

 no single case an nnusnally rapiil or vieions course of tuberculosis. In spite of a 

 demand made months ajjo, I have received thus tar no report from any veterina- 

 rian of an undesirable result. 



